Thursday, May 26, 2011

The media is ever so excited about John Edwards facing charges for having used campaign contributions to influence and/or support the mother of his illegitimate child. It seems that federal prosecutors have been developing this case for quite a while and are ready to file charges.

I was no fan of Edwards when he was campaigning. While I liked some of the causes he espoused, I never trusted him and always felt that he was far too slick and self absorbed. I would have no comment on his present troubles if it were not for the somewhat related case of John Ensign.

Ensign, you may recall, was about as faithful to his wife as Edwards was to his, not only cheating on her but cheating with a married staff member. When caught he, like Edwards, refused to terminate the affair, and when the whole thing blew up completely he threw money at the problem. In Ensign’s case there is no question about the illegality of the manner in which he did it, because he not only got the staffer’s husband hired by lobbyists with whom he had political influence, he used strong-arm tactics in the process.

The Justice Department investigated and declined to file charges against Ensign. Following that the Senate Ethics Committee referred the case back to Justice, asking that criminal charges be considered, but so far Justice has failed to do so. They have, apparently, been too busy preparing somewhat murky charges against Edwards to prepare charges for very clear and obvious criminal violations by Ensign.

Interesting, isn’t it? Even thought Edwards is a Democrat, I guess he has been out of office for too long to enjoy the immunity from the long arm of the law that attaches to elected office holders.

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

I grew up in the Air Force, and served in diesel-electric submarines during the Cold War. I worked in the steel industry until it sort of died in the 80's, then in landscape management until recently, when health issues demanded retirement.

I believe government should intrude in the lives of its citizens to the minumum possible degree, but I also know that it must be big enough to
"get the job done." To me the job of government includes concepts that are usually thought of as liberal such as stringent regulation of necessary monopolies, regulating all business enough to prevent it from becoming predatory, providing necessary
comfort to citizens who are rendered destitute by calamity outside their reasonable control, and protection of our environment and natural resources.